


Promises

by captainsarmband



Series: Meet me in our secret place (when the time has come) [3]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 20:38:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2521016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainsarmband/pseuds/captainsarmband
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His packing is going slow, some of the boxes he filled and emptied and filled again for a dozen times. He knows how to pack his bag for away games, for international breaks, for summer holidays. He doesn't remember how to organize leaving for good. He doesn't remember how to let go of things. How to decide what to leave behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises

"You're an asshole, Agger."

Dan can barely step out of the way to let Martin walk in. He was reluctant to give in to the loud banging on the door in the first place, only to be greeted by an angry face and a storming rage. He knows now why he never envied anyone playing against Martin fucking Skrtel, it's terrifying.

"Hello to you, too," he says and closes the door, lingers, maybe longer than necessary before he inevitably has to turn around. It's only then that he notices the drops of rain dripping from Martin's clothes onto the floor. "Did you walk here?"

Martin just shrugs at him, not bothering with an answer. "You can't just leave," he says instead and paces through the hall. He's wearing a splint and limps and Dan winces for him with every step he takes, though the Slovak doesn't even seem to notice. "You can undo this, right? Just talk to Brendan. Tell him you changed your mind."

"But I haven't." He tries to sort his thoughts, orientate himself in the strangeness of the situation, but it's hard to concentrate when his own leg stings with Martin's painful strides. "Shouldn't you have crutches?"

Martin comes to a halt and his gaze stays fixed on the half-packed boxes in the living room. His packing is going slow, some of the boxes he filled and emptied and filled again for a dozen times. He knows how to pack his bag for away games, for international breaks, for summer holidays. He doesn't remember how to organize leaving for good. He doesn't remember how to let go of things. How to decide what to leave behind. "But you must," Martin finally says, ignoring Dan's question.

"Why?"

"Because you promised."

It hits him like a punch in the gut. He promised. Months ago. On a hotel balcony where everything seemed possible and nothing was real. He promised, the moment he set foot onto the training ground. He never said it out loud. But he knew and Martin knew and that was all that mattered for his oath to be made.

"I have to do this, Martin. It's the right step." He's told himself that so often that he believes it. He just didn't think he'd have to explain it to _him_.

"Buggering off to fucking Denmark?" Dan opens his mouth to argue, because no-one talks about his country like that. But Martin doesn't give him a chance. "You could be playing for the title, you could be playing Champions League!"

"I wouldn't." _I wish I would. I wish we would together. Like we used to._ When he closes his eyes, he can still feel the cold night air entering his lungs as he steps out unto the pitch. He can hear the crowd singing, feels the goosebumps on his skin as the anthem starts. When he closes his eyes, he remembers every second of it. So he tries to keep them open, refrains from even blinking for a moment, until his eyes get watery.

"What?" Martin finally tears his eyes from the boxes and looks at him. And Dan wishes he wouldn't.

"You might be playing Champions League, but I wouldn't be." The words leave a bitter taste in his mouth, but they are the truth, it stings _because_ it is the truth and he knows it. And maybe, going to a different club, a big club, a successful club, he could have those nights again. But he would rather give up ever feeling that moment again than experiencing it in a shirt that doesn't quite fit, with a team that isn't quite his, in a stadium that isn't quite home. And so he does give it up.

"So it's my fault now?" Martin's frown is deep and his jaw set. As if daring Dan to come at him, launch an attack, step into his area. Dan has seen him ready for a tackle a thousand times. He's just never seen that look directed at himself. And he realizes he will never again be there to mark the player Martin points to or take the steps to anticipate his pass or walk alongside him to the other end of the field for a corner.

"Of course not."

"Then why?"

_Because I'm tired. Because I can't fight anymore, not for a place, not for the club, not for you. Not against you._

"Because there's nothing here for me." _And maybe not anywhere else. But it's easier to endure there._

Silence settles between them. It's not even uncomfortable, it's just an absence of noise. Of words that never really brought him very far anyway. It's okay until Dan watches Martin's shoulders slump, his face softening, not with content, but with defeat. And Dan's instinct tells him to fight anything that makes Martin feel defeated. It probably comes with being team-mates, he reasons, it's only natural. He just doesn't know what he's fighting against now.

"I'm here."

Martin's words are quieter than the silence and Dan isn't quite sure whether he only imagined them, somewhere in the back of his mind where so much happened that never came to be.

"I know," he replies weakly. _I know._

"You don't know shit, Agger."

And before he can answer or even feel insulted, Martin crosses the distance between them and Dan prepares himself to get punched. So when Martin's hands do touch his face, cold and wet on his cheeks, he flinches, and Martin stops, searches his face for something that Dan desperately hopes he will find, because he has no idea how to convey whatever it is he feels or wants or needs. Except that he does know, when Martin leans in (and he can see a raindrop glittering in his lashes before he closes his eyes) and their lips touch, that he has never wanted anything else as much. He feels himself being pushed against the wall and it's okay. It's okay to give in this once, because it's Martin. It's okay to not be in control and not pay attention to his surroundings. Because Martin will get his bad passes and clear his turnover, will put a hand on his shoulder to rearrange his position in the wall before a free-kick. He will know what to do.

Dan lifts his hand to the back of Martin's neck and pulls him closer. And he feels the stubble underneath his fingertips and the breath on his skin and it's almost like celebrating a goal. Just closer. So much fucking closer. The moisture of Martin's clothes seeps through his shirt and sweatpants and Dan welcomes it, because it connects them, somehow. And when Martin licks at his lower lip, he opens his mouth and feels their tongues touching and their bodies, everywhere at once. It's too much, everything is too much and too little and he digs his fingers into Martin's skin to let him _know_. To somehow let him know that he needs to stop and go further and not be here and stay with him forever. And maybe he does know because his hip pushes forward and a moan escapes Dan's mouth at the friction of their groins.

Somehow he manages to push himself off the wall and manoeuvre them towards the couch, which is difficult, because Martin's splint is impractical and their stubborn unwillingness to part for only one second even more so, and they land in a graceless heap of limbs, teeth clashing, Dan's elbow digging into Martin's stomach. He wants to say sorry (for the pain he's causing, for leaving, for every fucking moment they wasted apart), but instead his lips hover over Martin's neck and the way he writhes beneath him, moves towards him, only ever towards him, seems more important than any apology.

Martin's hand crawls beneath the waistband of his pants and Dan hides the hitching of his breath by biting at his neck. There are moans and hisses and contented sighs and Dan doesn't know whose they are, but he can't get himself to care when he feels Martin's hand on him, caressing, stroking, offering him the moment of oblivion that he craved almost as much as those fucking beautiful lips that are suddenly his to kiss. He starts to fumble at the zip of Martin's trousers, but the wet material clings hopelessly to his body and he lets out a frustrated groan.

"It's okay," Martin says hoarsely and takes Dan's useless hand in his. He intertwines their fingers, framing Dan's YNWA with his pale knuckles and Dan can't take his eyes off of the sight. Martin's other hand moves from his pants over his torso, slides over his arm and comes to a halt just under his jawline, thumb brushing over his skin in a motion more gentle than Dan ever thought possible from his team-mate. _Former_ team-mate. And there are so many things that he's run out of time to discover. "It's okay."

Dan lets his fore-head rest against Martin's, breathing in the air he exhales, not allowing the space between them to grow, when it will soon widen by hundreds of kilometres. He closes his eyes and tries to memorize his scent, the rhythm of his breath, only to find that he's known them by heart for years.

"So you're really leaving." Martin's lips brush over his with every word and it distracts Dan from understanding their meaning for a moment.

"Yeah." _Give me a reason and I'll stay. I'll make it work, somehow. I promise._

"I could help you pack." Dan's heart sinks as he realizes that his last straw is gone. And though he wanted to leave, return home, play where he is needed, his mind constructed an entirely different plan the second Martin brushed past him through the door.

"You don't have to." _But please don't go. If I'm the one who's leaving, please stay with me for a while._

"By the looks of it, I do."

"Fuck you."

Martin chuckles and Dan can't help but trace the perfect curve of his lips with his fingertips, the dimples at the corners of his mouth, before Martin takes his hand and plants a kiss onto his palm. "So where do we start?"

_On this sofa, between you and me. This is where we start, right at the end. A story in reverse._

"By putting some dry clothes on you. You'll ruin the carpet."

 

Dan folds his clothes into suitcases, while Martin sits down by the shelf and starts pulling out the books from the lowest rack. Sometimes he holds one up with a questioning look and Dan smiles and tells him when he read it and where. And what stayed with him and what Martin would like about it. And when he sometimes catches him taking a book out of the box again and slowly but surely building a small pile behind his back, he decides not to comment on it. And when he halts his packings for a moment to watch Martin pull the sleeve of his hoodie, _his_ hoodie, over his hand to wipe away the dust from a cover, he tries to photograph the scene in his mind to look at when he unpacks the boxes on his own.

When Dan has wrapped the last of his plates into a cover of newspaper, sealed the box and labeled it FRAGILE in big black letters, Martin is already sprawled out on the carpet. breathing evenly, and Dan crouches down next to him. He studies the edge of his cheekbones, the small patch of skin where his pullover has ridden up, it looks like porcelain and Dan ponders whether the one he always thought to be unbreakable just comes without a fragility label. His eyes wander to the splint on Martin's leg, silently underlining his theory.

"Stop staring." Martin's eyes flutter open and meet Dan's who hastily averts his gaze.

"I thought you were sleeping."

"Creep." Martin props himself up on one elbow and brushes his knuckles over Dan's cheek. It's a quick motion, hardly even there. But it is. And the memory of the touch lingers on Dan's skin until it's replaced by the very present feeling of Martin's lips on his.

"I could stay, you know," Dan feels Martin's words on his skin as much as he hears them. "I could drive you to the airport."

Dan thinks of Martin's leg and how he didn't come by car and for a second he wants to point that out. But then again he knows how Martin must be aware of it, painfully aware of it, probably, so when he lies down beside him and nods. "Okay."

They stay like that for a while, pretending that as long as they stayed awake, it wouldn't be night and if it could never become night, they would never have to part. Dan doesn't know when he last felt like this. As a child maybe, when he still refused to go to bed because of all the hours he would miss out on. It was worse now. Because this time he would be missing hours with Martin and he would never get them back.

"Dan," Martin's voice makes his eyes fly open when he doesn't even remember closing them. In a moment of panic he shoots up to look out of the window. It's still dark. He doesn't have to face the following morning yet, can still pretend it will never come at all.

"We should go to bed," Martin says quietly, a voice of reason when Dan's mind screams chaos. His back hurts when he gets up and for an insane second he hopes that it might stop him from playing. Leave him without responsibilities or hopes or will. Without a choice and without a farewell. But once the thought fully registers in his brain, he realizes how wrong it is, buries it deep into the back of his mind where he'll never find it again, and helps Martin to his feet.

It takes them a while to make it upstairs. Dan is tired. So tired even, that he misses the moment when Martin takes his clothes off and neatly folds them onto the chair. He only becomes aware of the lack of material between them when Martin's bare chest presses against his back. It feels weird somehow. The intimacy, the proximity, but most of all how natural it feels. And Dan wonders how now, when he knows what this feels like, he is supposed to be okay without it. And he will have to. Have to make do with the phantom touch of skin against skin, like he did that night on the hotel balcony - years ago, it seems.

"Stop." Martin's lip touch Dan's ear with the word and Dan shivers.

"I didn't do anything."

"You're thinking so loud, it's keeping me awake."

"I wasn't - I - " Dan sighs, defeated. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For taking away-" what could be, what we could be. Every second we might share, every moment that will never be. "our time."

"We'll make time."

"But we'll be-"

"Listen to me, Agger," Martin tugs at his shoulder and makes him turn around. His face looks softer in the moonlight, so the stern look in his eyes seems even more piercing. "We'll make this work." He searches Dan's face for some sign of reaction, agreement, trust, before he adds: "I promise."

And Dan bites his lip, because he's done hoping for things that are futile, because he has stopped being naive a long time ago. But it's Martin. And he has never lied to Dan. And so he decides to believe him.


End file.
